Tuesday, January 03, 2006

Fresh Spring Rolls

Fresh Spring rolls are the most common starter in Vietnamese restaurants in Viet Nam. In Hanoi, there is an area aroung Truc Bach Lake which just sells rolls called Pho cuon. In response to requests from Vietgod readers, I am going to give you a recipe of this particular fresh spring roll and the its story.

The following information and recipe is from Seasons of Hanoi, one of the restaurants in my group.

The Nguyen dynasty came to power in Hue in 1802. What followed was a highly controversial period of rule as well as highly decedent lifestyles. King Tu Duc was reported to call upon over 30 chefs to accompany him to the Royal tombs. The chefs practiced a style of cooking that placed great importance upon delicately crafted, ornamental dishes. Hue is still famed for this style of food and uses rice paper to wrap light food parcel.

Serves 4
150 grams of pork shoulder
8 medium sized raw shrimps
½ Lettuce
½ Cup of bean sprouts
100 grams of fresh rice vermicelli
1/3 cup of fresh mint leaves
1 carrot
Coriander to garnish

Cook the pork and prawns in boiling salted water. Slice the pork into thin strips and the prawns in half length ways.
Take a piece of rice paper and place on a damp towel. Coat the rice paper with hot water using the fingers as a brush.
Place three half prawns, and three thin slices of pork across the central section of the rice paper approximately 1/3 of the way from the bottle. Add a small amount of blanched bean sprout, grated carrot, fresh vermicelli, lettuce and mint leaves and rolls the parcel. The mix of ingredients should be uniformly dispersed and spread over 8- 10 CMS. Folding in the rice paper and to the side of the ingredients as you roll up the parcels.

Dipping sauce: Lemon: squeeze for juice. Put fish sauce, sugar, lemon juice, garlic chili in a large mixing bowl; put 2 spoon of fresh water in then stir well.

It is important to apply a little pressure as you roll to ensure that the roll is firm & tight.

Hope you guys enjoy this dish yourself at home and get back to me.

23 comments:

Nicole said...

hey thanks.
your blog is real neat.(:

Hasan Mubarak said...

I'm currently at University and after reading this I'm damn hungry for these. Can you DHL me some of these??

Hasan Mubarak said...

And yes, have a Happy New Year!

Jen(nnn) said...

Your blog is very interesting - especialy for an expat like me who hasn't been back to her home country since she was born.

This is my all time favourite food. One thing though... you forgot about the sauce.

1 tablespoon vegetable oil
2-3 cloves of garlic, finely chopped
1 teaspoon tomato puree (I use ketchup)
1/2 cup water
1 tablespoon peanut butter
1 tablespoons hoisin sauce
1/2 teaspoon sugar
1/2 lime, juiced

Heat up the vegetable oil in a small sauce pan. Sautee garlic until lightly golden over medium heat, then add remaining ingredients. Stir until well combined and heated through.

Cheers!

FooDcrazEE said...

ngon qua ! even then uoc cham looks so delish! how i miss HCMC...

black feline said...

i can smell the mint leaves and sauce already..the vietnamese rice skin is quite difficult to obtain here..

Furkids in Hong Kong™ said...

Hi!

Happy belated X'mas, New Year and especially B'day!

Thanks for visiting us - hope you'll drop by again.

Later!

Nabeel said...

man this looks delicious .. especially the soup ..

by the way .. what's your god's name? I'm sure it's not called Vietnamese god.

Buddhist with an attitude said...

Hi God,
Thanks for the wishes. Happy New Year to you too and Happy birthday. I'm going back to Vietnam for a visit this summer, so may be I'll be seeing you. Take care.

Robin CHAN said...

Thanks for dropping by.

I love Vietnamese foods and have visited many parts of Vietnam.

Do drop by sometime.

Claudia said...

Hi VG! Merry Xmas, Happy New Year and Birthday!

I'll have to try this recipe for your spring rolls.

Cheers!

Thao said...

Those rice spring rolls sure are becoming popular! Love the colourful photos - you make them look so gorgeous.

Thanks for dropping by, you have a great site here yourself!

Jellyfish said...

wow.....
nice blog!

thx 4 visiting :)
happy new year to you too..

luckily i have just finished my dinner, if not i'll be drolling at your spring roll pics
hahaha...

YD said...

Chau Ong, God! n happy new year!

your dishes look fantastic! i can almost taste the dishes from here!

thnx for dropping by yoh!

mybabybunny said...

hmmm...now u r making me hungry. ;-)

well i guess i will get to eat it soon. New Year's coming!!!!

but its a nice pic u have there....

perhaps when i go back...u can bring me around vietnam. been back only once...but my dad goes back often. ;-)

slurp! said...

bought 2 pkts of rice paper when i was in HCMC. time to put into good use :)
thanks for the simple & delicious recipe!

Van Cong Tu said...

Hi all,
Glad that you guys like this recipe.
You've reached Jen...oopsI forgot about the dipping sauce. Thanks indeed.
Nabeel God names Tu, thanks :)
Buddhist with an attitude : You know where to find me right, see ya soon.
Thanks all

Anonymous said...

hiyah! The rolls look darn good! I am gona try making some tmr!

Van Cong Tu said...

Hope you can make a really good spring rolls

Anonymous said...

um.... what are the mesaurements for the dipping sauce?

Anonymous said...

Hi, I'd like to make these tonight but I just wanted to double check that these aren't fried, right? It's okay to eat them raw, as long as the internal ingredients are cooked?

I've seen some recipes call for these to be fried so I wanted to check to see if it was okay and if the rice paper was the same - that the paper can either be eaten fried, or just soaked in water and wrapped up? :)

Anonymous said...

Hello All! I hope people still check this site. I am an avid Vietnamese food lover but for the life of me I cannot seem to replicate the spring roll sauce (or Nuac mum?) recipe that one of my favorite restaurants here in Calgary AB Canada has! The restaurants name is Oriental Phoenix and their sauce is nice and sweet,not a ton of lime juice or garlic and has juliened carrot's in it.... Does anyone know of a great recipe for a nice sweet dipping sauce? I like the look of the sauce on this site, but there doesn;t seem to be a recipe (with tablespoons etc) that I can see?

Unknown said...

You've inspired me! Haven't had good spring rolls since I left Washington, D.C. Hard to come by them in northern Michigan. I'm on my way to procure hoisin asap. Thanks for your blog.